1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the domain of logistics and the conveyance of various articles, and more particularly to the collection of articles stored in general stores, warehouses or workshops with a view to dispatch thereof.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
The operations of collecting and handling articles in workshops with a view to dispatch thereof raise numerous problems, particularly when it is question of operating rapidly and without errors. When these articles are cumbersome and fragile, such as for example in the garment trade, it is known to collect them and convey them in the workshop by means of mobile carriages adapted to move along a runway fixed to the ceiling of the workshop and circulating between the different rows of garments in this workshop. These carriages or “baskets” are pushed, or more often pulled, manually by agents by means of a rigid draw rod connected to each carriage or group of carriages. More rarely, these carriages are individually motorized by an electric or hydraulic motor conventionally controlled from the floor by a suspension chain or push-button box.
At the present time, when an order for garments is to be processed, the agent in charge of collecting these garments in the workshop (also called picking hall), where they are stored among thousands of others as a function of their particular characteristics (trademark, design, size, colour, etc.), follows a one-way circuit, and, in accordance with a previously filled in work sheet, successively stops in front of the predetermined rows of garments corresponding to the order to be satisfied. At each of these stops, each garment selected is taken out of its rack and suspended by hooking on the carriage. At the end of the course, the garments are removed from the carriage and directly packed for dispatch to the addressee of the order thus processed.
Now, in practice, and sometimes unfortunately only once the parcel has arrived at the addressee's location, errors or articles missing with respect to the initial order are often observed.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome these drawbacks by proposing a system for collecting and automatically checking an order before it is dispatched, which is both simple and economical.